Supporting structure with height difference and vapor chamber having the supporting structure

ABSTRACT

A vapor chamber having supporting structure with height difference, includes a shell, tissue wick structure, working fluid filled into the shell and supporting structure with height difference, disposed over inner walls of the shell, accommodated in the shell, abutted against the wick structure, and including first corrugated piece and second corrugated piece, both of which are connected to each other. The longitudinal distance between top and bottom of the first corrugated piece is a first amplitude. The longitudinal distance between top and bottom of the second corrugated piece is a second amplitude larger than the first amplitude. Since the second amplitude provides the shell with greater supporting force, when the shell is pressed to make heating element and the shell contact closely, a recessing phenomenon won&#39;t occur to the shell, thereby, increasing the contact tightness and promoting the thermally conductive efficiency.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention in general relates to a supporting structure, in particular, to a supporting structure having height difference and a vapor chamber having the supporting structure.

2. Description of Prior Art

Currently, vapor chamber has become a thermally conductive instrument very commonly used for electronic device. Therefore, each industry continuously makes R&D on vapor chamber, making vapor chamber able to reach a better performance of thermal conduction.

According to the prior arts, a vapor chamber includes a shell, a wick structure, a working fluid and a supporting structure. The wick structure is disposed over inner walls of the shell. The working fluid is filled into the shell. The supporting structure is arranged in the shell by respectively abutting its upper and lower ends against the wick structure. The thickness of this supporting structure is constant, such that the supporting forces generated by the supporting structure on every place of the shell's side faces are all equal. The operation of this kind of supporting structure is to provide a supporting function. When interior of the shell is vacuumed, the supporting structure can prevent the shell from generating recessing phenomenon due to the influence of pressure. Furthermore, when the vapor chamber contacts closely to a heating element, the supporting structure also can prevent the outer surface of the shell from generating any recessing phenomenon.

However, in terms of practical usage, this kind of vapor chamber still has several drawbacks. For example, in order to make the heating element contact closely to the vapor chamber, a greater force has to be acted on the vapor chamber to make the surface of the vapor chamber corresponding to the position of the heating element able to contact closely to the side face of the heating element. Therefore, the surface of the vapor chamber corresponding to the position of the heating element needs a greater supporting force, otherwise the surface of the vapor chamber corresponding to the position of the heating element being going to generate a recessing phenomenon due to too large pressure. However, in the prior vapor chamber, since the design of the supporting structure is to provide the supporting structure with uniformly supporting forces in everywhere, the surface of the vapor chamber corresponding to the surface of the heating element is easily occurred a recessing phenomenon due to the concentrating force, thereby, the vapor chamber unable to contact closely to the heating element and the best thermally conductive efficiency unable to reach either.

Accordingly, after a substantially devoted study, in cooperation with the application of relative academic principles, the inventor has finally proposed the present invention that is designed reasonably to possess the capability to improve the drawbacks of the prior art significantly.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention is mainly to provide a supporting structure with height difference and a vapor chamber having the supporting structure. Since the second amplitude of the second corrugated piece is larger to generate a greater supporting force, when the supporting structure contacts a heating element closely, the shell won't generate any recession, compared with the prior arts, the invention can promote the thermally conductive efficiency by generating an effective tightness.

Secondly, the invention is to provide a vapor chamber having supporting structure with height difference, including a shell, a wick structure, a working fluid and a supporting structure with height difference. The capillary structure is disposed over inner walls of the shell. The working fluid is filled into the shell. The supporting structure with height difference is accommodated in the shell and is abutted against the wick structure. The supporting structure includes a first corrugated piece and a second corrugated piece. The longitudinal distance between the top and bottom of the first corrugated piece is a first amplitude. The second and first corrugated pieces are connected to each other. The longitudinal distance between the top and bottom of the second corrugated piece is a second amplitude. The second amplitude is larger than the first amplitude.

Thirdly, the invention is to provide a supporting structure with height difference, including a first corrugated piece and a second corrugated piece. The longitudinal distance between the top and bottom of the first corrugated piece is a first amplitude. The second and first corrugated pieces are connected to each other. The longitudinal distance between the top and bottom of the second corrugated piece is a second amplitude. The second amplitude is larger than the first amplitude.

Compared with the prior arts, the invention has several advantages. For example, by the second corrugated piece, the surface of the vapor chamber corresponding to the position of the heating element can have a greater supporting force, when the outer surface of the vapor chamber contacts closely to the heating element, won't occur any recession due to the pressure. Thereby, the thermally conductive efficiency is promoted, because the outer surface of the vapor chamber can contact more closely to the heating element. In addition, the supporting structure can made via an integral formation or an assembling method.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING

The features of the invention believed to be novel are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, may be best understood by reference to the following detailed description of the invention, which describes a number of embodiments of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective explosive view of a supporting structure according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a perspective outer view of a supporting structure according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view along a “3-3” cross-sectional line in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a locally enlarging view of “A” part in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a perspective explosive view of a vapor chamber according to the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view along a “6-6” cross-sectional line in FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a locally enlarging view of “B” part in FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view of a vapor chamber according to the present invention when it is under application;

FIG. 9 is a cross-sectional explosive view of a supporting structure according to another embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional assembled view of a supporting structure according to another embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In cooperation with attached drawings, the technical contents and detailed description of the present invention are described thereinafter according to a number of preferable embodiments, not used to limit its executing scope. Any equivalent variation and modification made according to appended claims is all covered by the claims claimed by the present invention.

Please refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 respectively showing a perspective explosive view and a perspective outer view of a supporting structure of the invention. The invention is to provide a supporting structure with height difference, including a first corrugated piece 31 and a second corrugated piece 32.

According to a preferable embodiment of the invention, the first corrugated piece 31 and the second corrugated piece 32 are both shown as a wave configuration, but not limited to this only. The first corrugated piece 31 has a plurality of first crest sections 311 and a plurality of first trough sections 312, which are respectively connected to each other by pair. The longitudinal distance between the top of the first crest section 312 and the bottom of the first trough section 312 is defined as a first amplitude b.

The second corrugated piece 32 and the first corrugated piece 31 are interconnected to each other. In this embodiment, the second corrugated piece 32 is placed in the first corrugated piece 31. In other words, the first corrugated piece 31 is arranged a through opening 313, in which the second corrugated piece 32 is accommodated, however, not limited to this kind of configuration only. In practice, the arrangement is considered according to the position of the heating element (not shown in the figures). Namely, the second corrugated piece 32 is arranged corresponding to the heating element.

The second corrugated piece 32 has a plurality of second crest sections 321 and a plurality of second trough sections 322, which are respectively connected to each other by pair. The longitudinal distance between the top of the second crest section 321 and the bottom of the second trough section 322 is defined as a second amplitude c. In this case, the second amplitude c is larger than the first amplitude b. Furthermore, in this embodiment, the corrugated structure with two kinks of amplitudes can be formed by constructing the first corrugated piece 31 and the second corrugated piece 32 on a plate body or a piece body simultaneously.

Please refer to FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 respectively showing a cross-sectional view along a “3-3” cross-sectional line in FIG. 2 and a locally enlarging view of “A” part in FIG. 3. From these figures, we can clearly see that the second amplitude c of the second corrugated piece 32 located at central part is substantially larger than the first amplitude b of the first corrugated piece 31 surrounding the second corrugated piece 32. In addition, the wave shapes of the first corrugated piece 31 and the second corrugated piece 32 are all a sine wave, however, not limited to this kind of configuration only. More specifically, the first corrugated piece 31 and the second corrugated piece 32 all include a sine wave section and a horizontal section connected to the sine wave section. Besides, the wave shapes of the first corrugated piece 31 and the second corrugated piece 32 can also be a trapezoid wave, a triangular wave or a square wave, however, not limited to these only.

Please refer to FIG. 5 through FIG. 7 separately showing a perspective explosive view of a vapor chamber according to the present invention, a cross-sectional view along a “6-6” cross-sectional line in FIG. 5, and a locally enlarging view of “B” part in FIG. 6. The invention is also to provide a vapor chamber 1 having a supporting structure 30 with height difference, including a shell 10, a wick structure 20, a working fluid 40 and a supporting structure 30 with height difference.

According to a preferable embodiment, the interior of the shell 10 is formed as an accommodation space; the wick structure 20 is disposed over inner walls of the shell 10; and the working fluid 40 is filled into the shell 10.

Please refer to FIG. 6 and FIG. 7 for detail. It can be seen from these figures that the top and lower sides of the supporting structure 30 with height difference are respectively abutted against the wick structure 20. Since the second amplitude c is larger, the second corrugated piece 32 at central part is abutted by the shell to generate a small amount of elastic deformation, while there is no elastic deformation generated at the surrounding of the second corrugated piece 32, namely, at the first corrugated piece 31. Therefore, the shell 10 corresponding to the position of the second component 32 will have a stronger supporting force.

Please refer to FIG. 8 showing a cross-sectional view of a vapor chamber according to the present invention when it is under application. When the shell 10 contacts closely to a heating element 60 with its second component 60, the shell 10 won't generate any recessing phenomenon, because of the supporting force of the second component 10, even when a force is applied to make the shell 10 contacted closely with the heating element 60. In this case, the thermally conductive efficiency is further promoted, because the surface of the shell 10 can be more compactly contacted with the heating element 60. In addition, in this embodiment, the vapor chamber 1 is overlapped over the heating element 60; however, this is not the only option, because the vapor chamber 1 can contact closely to the heating element 60 from a lower position. Moreover, in order to make the vapor chamber 1 and the heating element 60 contacted to each other more tightly, a fastener (not shown in the figure) is sometimes needed to supply pressure to the both heating element 60 and vapor chamber 1.

Please further refer to FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 respectively showing a cross-sectional explosive view and a cross-sectional assembled view of a supporting structure according to another embodiment of the present invention. Besides an integral formation, the supporting structure 30 supplied by the invention can also be made by an assembling manner. In so doing, the first corrugated piece 31 is arranged a hole 314, while a pin 323, formed at one side of the second corrugated piece 32, is insect into the hole 314, to thereby assemble the first corrugated piece 31 and the second corrugated piece 32 together. In terms of machining difficulty, this kind of manufacture is easier because, in an integral formation, it has to calculate the deformation rate of materials first and the mold's design is more difficult. During an integral formation, after the first corrugated piece 31 is stamped and the second corrugated piece 32 is going to be stamped, it has to consider that the stamp of the second corrugated piece 32 won't deform or damage the first corrugated piece 31, so it is more difficult relatively. By contrast, in an assembling method, the first corrugated piece 31 and the second corrugated piece 32 are manufactured separately and then assembled, so its difficulty is lower.

In addition, a ventilation hole d is separately arranged on the first crest section 311, the first trough section 312, the second crest section 321 and the second trough section 322. The function of this ventilation hole d is to reduce the resistance, when the working fluid 40 (shown in FIG. 6) is vaporized and flowing upwardly, thereby, the thermally conductive efficiency being increased.

Accordingly, through the constitution of aforementioned assemblies, a supporting structure with height difference and a vapor chamber having the supporting structure according to the invention are thus obtained.

Summarizing aforementioned description, the supporting structure with height difference according to the invention is an indispensably design for a vapor chamber indeed, which may positively reach the expected usage objective for solving the drawbacks of the prior arts, and which extremely possesses the innovation and progressiveness to completely fulfill the applying merits of new type patent, according to which the invention is thereby applied. Please examine the application carefully and grant it as a formal patent for protecting the rights of the inventor.

However, the aforementioned description is only a number of preferable embodiments according to the present invention, not used to limit the patent scope of the invention, so equivalently structural variation made to the contents of the present invention, for example, description and drawings, is all covered by the claims claimed thereinafter. 

1. A vapor chamber having supporting structure with height difference, including: a shell; a wick structure disposed over inner walls of the shell; a working fluid filled into the shell; and a supporting structure with height difference, which is accommodated in the shell and is abutted against the wick structure, and which includes: a first corrugated piece, a longitudinal distance between a top and a bottom of which is a first amplitude; and a second corrugated piece, which is connected to the first corrugated piece, and a longitudinal distance between a top and a bottom of which is a second amplitude, which is larger than the first amplitude.
 2. The vapor chamber having supporting structure with height difference according to claim 1, wherein the first corrugated piece is arranged a through opening, in which the second corrugated piece is accommodated.
 3. The vapor chamber having supporting structure with height difference according to claim 2, wherein wave forms of the first corrugated piece and the second corrugated piece are both a sine wave.
 4. The vapor chamber having supporting structure with height difference according to claim 3, wherein the first corrugated piece has a hole, into which a pin formed at one end of the second corrugated piece is inset.
 5. A supporting structure with height difference, including: a first corrugated piece, a longitudinal distance between a top and a bottom of which is a first amplitude; and a second corrugated piece connected to the first corrugated piece, and a longitudinal distance between a top and a bottom of which is a second amplitude larger than the first amplitude.
 6. The vapor chamber having supporting structure with height difference according to claim 5, wherein the first corrugated piece is arranged a through opening, in which the second corrugated piece is accommodated.
 7. The vapor chamber having supporting structure with height difference according to claim 6, wherein wave forms of the first corrugated piece and the second corrugated piece are both a sine wave.
 8. The vapor chamber having supporting structure with height difference according to claim 7, wherein the first corrugated piece has a hole, into which a pin formed at one end of the second corrugated piece is inset. 